Arctic regions,”[482] states that although the flesh of the bear is both agreeable and wholesome, the liver of that animal is poisonous; sailors who had inadvertently eaten it, were almost always sick afterwards, and some actually died; while in others the cuticle has peeled off their bodies. The ancients appear to have entertained a fear with regard to the wholesomeness of the viscera of certain animals, and of the fluids which they secrete. _Pliny_ says that the gall of a horse was accounted poison; and, therefore, at the sacrifices of horses in Rome, it was unlawful for the _Flamen_ (priest) to touch it. _Mr. Brodie_ has lately favoured the author with the communication of a fact, which goes far to support the theory we have offered with respect to the possible source of poison in sausages. He states that he has twice met with evidence of the acrid and poisonous nature of “_dog’s meat_,” as sold in the streets of London, which manifested itself by producing ulcerations, of a peculiar character, on the hands, and swelling in the axillæ, of the venders! May we venture to ask whether the prosecution of this inquiry might not possibly lead to some new and important conclusions respecting the origin of hydrophobia? Where animals have died from disease, their flesh has undoubtedly produced affections by external contact, as well as by its ingestion. At the Somerset assizes in 1819, a case was tried, whose merits wholly turned upon the question now under discussion. A cow, having died of some disease, was thrown into the river Yeo, and several cattle that afterwards drank of the water died of a similar complaint. An action was accordingly brought against the owner of the cow for damages. The defendant, however, obtained a verdict, apparently from the evidence of a medical person, who asserted that animal matter in a state of putrefaction will not communicate contagion. But we must here beg to observe that this is quite another and distinct question; the merits of which we have already considered.[483] The physiological question involved in the preceding case, is whether the carcase of an animal, whose fluids have been depraved by antecedent disease, is capable, or not, of producing morbid and fatal affections in the living animals with which it may come in contact? The facts collected by _MM. Enaux_ and _Chaussier_, in their work entitled “_Methode de traiter les Morsures des Animaux enragés_,” prove in a very satisfactory manner that the _Anthrax_, or _Malignant Pustule_, has for its cause a _septic virus_ engendered in diseased animals, and transmitted to man.[484] The following are amongst the more striking examples cited from these authors by _Orfila_. “A shepherd bled one of his sheep, which had just died suddenly; he carried it home on his shoulders; but the blood penetrated his shirt, and was rubbed upon his loins. Two days after, a _malignant pustule_ appeared upon this spot.”